Chapter XIV. A Battle and a Victory

There was something in his words and tone, which Dick, who was
disposed to stand up for his dignity, did not at all relish.

“Well, what’s the odds if I am?” he retorted. “Does it hurt you
any?”

“See him put on airs, Jim,” said Micky, turning to his companion.
“Where’d you get them clo’es?”

“Never mind where I got ’em. Maybe the Prince of Wales gave ’em to
me.”

“Hear him, now, Jim,” said Micky. “Most likely he stole ’em.”

“Stealin’ aint in my line.”

It might have been unconscious the emphasis which Dick placed on the
word “my.” At any rate Micky chose to take offence.

“Do you mean to say I steal?” he demanded, doubling up his fist,
and advancing towards Dick in a threatening manner.

“I don’t say anything about it,” answered Dick, by no means alarmed
at this hostile demonstration. “I know you’ve been to the Island
twice. P’r’aps ’twas to make a visit along of the Mayor and
Aldermen. Maybe you was a innocent victim of oppression. I aint a
goin’ to say.”

Micky’s freckled face grew red with wrath, for Dick had only stated
the truth.

“Do you mean to insult me?” he demanded shaking the fist already
doubled up in Dick’s face. “Maybe you want a lickin’?”

“I aint partic’larly anxious to get one,” said Dick, coolly. “They
don’t agree with my constitution which is nat’rally delicate. I’d
rather have a good dinner than a lickin’ any time.”

“Do you want to fight?” demanded Micky, encouraged by Dick’s
quietness, fancying he was afraid to encounter him.

“No, I don’t,” said Dick. “I aint fond of fightin’. It’s a very poor
amusement, and very bad for the complexion, ’specially for the eyes
and nose, which is apt to turn red, white, and blue.”

Micky misunderstood Dick, and judged from the tenor of his speech
that he would be an easy victim. As he knew, Dick very seldom was
concerned in any street fight,–not from cowardice, as he imagined,
but because he had too much good sense to do so. Being quarrelsome,
like all bullies, and supposing that he was more than a match for
our hero, being about two inches taller, he could no longer resist
an inclination to assault him, and tried to plant a blow in Dick’s
face which would have hurt him considerably if he had not drawn back
just in time.

Now, though Dick was far from quarrelsome, he was ready to defend
himself on all occasions, and it was too much to expect that he
would stand quiet and allow himself to be beaten.

He dropped his blacking-box on the instant, and returned Micky’s
blow with such good effect that the young bully staggered back, and
would have fallen, if he had not been propped up by his confederate,
Limpy Jim.

“Go in, Micky!” shouted the latter, who was rather a coward on his
own account, but liked to see others fight. “Polish him off, that’s
a good feller.”

Micky was now boiling over with rage and fury, and required no
urging. He was fully determined to make a terrible example of poor
Dick. He threw himself upon him, and strove to bear him to the
ground; but Dick, avoiding a close hug, in which he might possibly
have got the worst of it, by an adroit movement, tripped up his
antagonist, and stretched him on the side walk.

“Hit him, Jim!” exclaimed Micky, furiously.

Limpy Jim did not seem inclined to obey orders. There was a quiet
strength and coolness about Dick, which alarmed him. He preferred
that Micky should incur all the risks of battle, and accordingly set
himself to raising his fallen comrade.

“Come, Micky,” said Dick, quietly, “you’d better give it up. I
wouldn’t have touched you if you hadn’t hit me first. I don’t want
to fight. It’s low business.”

“You’re afraid of hurtin’ your clo’es,” said Micky, with a sneer.

“Maybe I am,” said Dick. “I hope I haven’t hurt yours.”

Micky’s answer to this was another attack, as violent and impetuous
as the first. But his fury was in the way. He struck wildly, not
measuring his blows, and Dick had no difficulty in turning aside, so
that his antagonist’s blow fell upon the empty air, and his momentum
was such that he nearly fell forward headlong. Dick might readily
have taken advantage of his unsteadiness, and knocked him down; but
he was not vindictive, and chose to act on the defensive, except
when he could not avoid it.

Recovering himself, Micky saw that Dick was a more formidable
antagonist than he had supposed, and was meditating another assault,
better planned, which by its impetuosity might bear our hero to the
ground. But there was an unlooked-for interference.

“Look out for the ’copp,’” said Jim, in a low voice.

Micky turned round and saw a tall policeman heading towards him, and
thought it might be prudent to suspend hostilities. He accordingly
picked up his black-box, and, hitching up his pants, walked off,
attended by Limpy Jim.

“What’s that chap been doing?” asked the policeman of Dick.

“He was amoosin’ himself by pitchin’ into me,” replied Dick.

“What for?”

“He didn’t like it ’cause I patronized a different tailor from him.”

“Well, it seems to me you are dressed pretty smart for a
boot-black,” said the policeman.

“I wish I wasn’t a boot-black,” said Dick.

“Never mind, my lad. It’s an honest business,” said the policeman,
who was a sensible man and a worthy citizen. “It’s an honest
business. Stick to it till you get something better.”

“I mean to,” said Dick. “It aint easy to get out of it, as the
prisoner remarked, when he was asked how he liked his residence.”

“I hope you don’t speak from experience.”

“No,” said Dick; “I don’t mean to get into prison if I can
help it.”

“Do you see that gentleman over there?” asked the officer, pointing
to a well-dressed man who was walking on the other side of the
street.

“Yes.”

“Well, he was once a newsboy.”

“And what is he now?”

“He keeps a bookstore, and is quite prosperous.”

Dick looked at the gentleman with interest, wondering if he should
look as respectable when he was a grown man.

It will be seen that Dick was getting ambitious. Hitherto he had
thought very little of the future, but was content to get along as
he could, dining as well as his means would allow, and spending the
evenings in the pit of the Old Bowery, eating peanuts between the
acts if he was prosperous, and if unlucky supping on dry bread or
an apple, and sleeping in an old box or a wagon. Now, for the first
time, he began to reflect that he could not black boots all his
life. In seven years he would be a man, and, since his meeting with
Frank, he felt that he would like to be a respectable man. He could
see and appreciate the difference between Frank and such a boy as
Micky Maguire, and it was not strange that he preferred the society
of the former.

In the course of the next morning, in pursuance of his new
resolutions for the future, he called at a savings bank, and held
out four dollars in bills besides another dollar in change. There
was a high railing, and a number of clerks busily writing at desks
behind it. Dick, never having been in a bank before, did not know
where to go. He went, by mistake, to the desk where money was paid
out.

“Where’s your book?” asked the clerk.

“I haven’t got any.”

“Have you any money deposited here?”

“No, sir, I want to leave some here.”

“Then go to the next desk.”

Dick followed directions, and presented himself before an elderly
man with gray hair, who looked at him over the rims of his
spectacles.

“I want you to keep that for me,” said Dick, awkwardly emptying his
money out on the desk.

“How much is there?”

“Five dollars.”

“Have you got an account here?”

“No, sir.”

“Of course you can write?”

The “of course” was said on account of Dick’s neat dress.

“Have I got to do any writing?” asked our hero, a little
embarrassed.

“We want you to sign your name in this book,” and the old gentleman
shoved round a large folio volume containing the names of
depositors.

Dick surveyed the book with some awe.

“I aint much on writin’,” he said.

“Very well; write as well as you can.”

The pen was put into Dick’s hand, and, after dipping it in the
inkstand, he succeeded after a hard effort, accompanied by many
contortions of the face, in inscribing upon the book of the bank
the name

Dick Hunter.

“Dick!–that means Richard, I suppose,” said the bank officer, who
had some difficulty in making out the signature.

“No; Ragged Dick is what folks call me.”

“You don’t look very ragged.”

“No, I’ve left my rags to home. They might get wore out if I used
’em too common.”

“Well, my lad, I’ll make out a book in the name of Dick Hunter,
since you seem to prefer Dick to Richard. I hope you will save up
your money and deposit more with us.”

Our hero took his bank-book, and gazed on the entry “Five Dollars"
with a new sense of importance. He had been accustomed to joke
about Erie shares, but now, for the first time, he felt himself a
capitalist; on a small scale, to be sure, but still it was no small
thing for Dick to have five dollars which he could call his own. He
firmly determined that he would lay by every cent he could spare
from his earnings towards the fund he hoped to accumulate.

But Dick was too sensible not to know that there was something more
than money needed to win a respectable position in the world. He
felt that he was very ignorant. Of reading and writing he only knew
the rudiments, and that, with a slight acquaintance with arithmetic,
was all he did know of books. Dick knew he must study hard, and
he dreaded it. He looked upon learning as attended with greater
difficulties than it really possesses. But Dick had good pluck. He
meant to learn, nevertheless, and resolved to buy a book with his
first spare earnings.

When Dick went home at night he locked up his bank-book in one
of the drawers of the bureau. It was wonderful how much more
independent he felt whenever he reflected upon the contents of
that drawer, and with what an important air of joint ownership
he regarded the bank building in which his small savings were
deposited.